Situation Normal: All [Deleted] Up

The other elephant in the room is class. Romney comes from money and is a guy who made his money fixing up big corporations, and so is part of the globalist elite. He talks and looks that way, too, though without the Philistine ease displayed by true patricians. His obvious tension contributes to the sense that his manner is contrived.

Huckabee comes from the other side of the tracks and makes an effort with his dress and his manner to remind people of that, and also to express concern about the lives of people who aren't bondholders. I don't see the nostrums of either doing much to help such folks, but at least Huckabee talks the talk.

The GOP's voting cattle, the evangelicals, must eventually get tired of being taken for granted, as must the blacks, who are herded to the polls for the benefit of the Democrats' establishment.

Anyway, Huckabee goes out of his way to be nice to McCain. He won't turn down VP if it's offered.

The GOP nominee will have to be McCain if the GOP is to have any hope at all of holding on to their filibuster-proof numbers in the Senate. If Romney is the nominee there will be enough evangelicals stay home to threaten too many GOP seats in the Senate. If Huckabee is the nominee the fiscal conservatives will stay at home, with the same results.

Now, if the GOP nominates McCain, he will lose to pretty much anyone the Democrats put up. But, there might be sufficient numbers turn out for the GOP to keep their 40+ buffer in the Senate as a firewall against a Democratic President.

Start watching the House and Senate GOP Campaign Committees. They should start turning up some heat in favor of McCain soon, probably with some issue ads in key states that vote on SuperDuperMagnificant Tuesday.

In all honesty Rod, it's a two man race right now. Huckabee lacks the money to stay in it with Romney and McCain. I really do not see where he can pick up the dollars that he needs to advertise to begin moving beyond his evangelical base. Romney has deep pockets and McCain has some wins under his belt. Huckabee has Iowa...and so did Robertson in 1988.

godisaheretic: "what carries the most weight is the potential for Romney to be the best Manager of the serious complex economic problems which the USA faces..."

Waffles, anyone? http://www.patriotsblade.com/mittswaffleshop/

If you think that the flip-flops were worn out by beating them over the head of John Kerry, you haven't begun to see them used until Romney comes out as the GOP nominee. Every speech he made that was remotely pro-choice or pro-GLBT rights while campaigning for governor will be shown 24/7 by the Democrats.

Mitt in 1994, from a letter to Log-Cabin Republicans: "“If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” Romney wrote. “My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.”"

And trust me, those fliers that he distributed during the 2002 Gay Pride Parade in Boston will surface everywhere. The ones that said "Mitt and Kerry wish you a great Pride weekend."

Copies of those fliers and letter will end up in every mailbox in the nation, reminding the evangelical voters in the GOP why they cannot trust Mitt to represent their values. These voters will stay home in droves, not unlike they did when Dole was the GOP nominee in 1996.

If you look at the demographics of likely voters, McCain, if he gets nominated, is probably unbeatable.

He gets independents in better numbers than anyone else. In fact he may have been the real reason Obama lost New Hampshire. He gets older voters, he gets enough women and the conservatives will swallow hard and come and vote for him rather than have four to eight years of Hillary/Obama.

And he is personally immune to all the usual Democrat campaign rhetoric. He isn't Teflon to that, he's Kevlar!

All he has to do is persuade his own party to nominate him.

I agree with you that each of those three candidates will lose a significant part of the base if nominated. If Clinton isn't the Democrat candidate, I don't see how the Republicans win in the fall.

Ande: "BTW- doesn't it make a difference with God-fearing Republicans that McCain actually served and almost died for his country, unlike a lot of recent elephant candidates?!"

It didn't seem to in 2000. It was George W. Bush's campaign that dropped the rumors of McCain's mental instability during the South Carolina primary campaign.

Being a war hero is useful to Republicans only when it advances their agenda. If you stand against them they simply do not care.

I truly digressed. I was talking about the fracture (?). People show their preferences in a primary. The general election is no different. Conservatives no mater how far right will not sit home simply because a less conservative candidate got the nod, especially if the options are a left of center devisive Hillary Clinton or an inexperienced almost as left of center Barak Obama. Both would hurt our security if they followed through leaving Iraq stable or not. Both think more government is necessary to solve our social problems and both think the rich will gladly pay for it.

Minnowspeaks: "Conservatives no mater how far right will not sit home simply because a less conservative candidate got the nod, especially if the options are a left of center devisive Hillary Clinton or an inexperienced almost as left of center Barak Obama. Both would hurt our security if they followed through leaving Iraq stable or not. Both think more government is necessary to solve our social problems and both think the rich will gladly pay for it."

Actually, the campaign of 1996 showed that conservatives, especially evangelicals, would stay at home when a less-than-perfect candidate was running against a Clinton. Bob Dole's remarks about the platform battle in Houston that year resounded in the evangelical community, and folks just stayed home or did not bother to pull a lever in the Presidential column.

If they stayed home and allowed a 2nd Bill Clinton term, they will stay home and allow a Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama first term.

Rod says, "Final thought: the Republican nominee will be either Mitt Romney, John McCain or Mike Huckabee. No matter which one wins the prize, a significant portion of the GOP base is going to decide to go fishing on election day. I can't see any of these men unifying a party as badly fractured as this one is this year."

Yes, not one of those men (nor Guiliani nor Thompson) could unify the Republican party. BUT, to be absolutely certain, a Hillary Clinton nomination by the Democrats would unite the Republicans as never before and would get those potential "gone fishing" non-voters to the polls.

I don't know whether I'll vote either, because I'm not excited about any of these GOP men. I find the Obama campaign exhilerating, even though I disagree strongly with the man's politics. I don't think I will vote for him, but I wouldn't feel at all bad if he becomes president. But the prospect of a president Hillary would send me and many people I know to the polls. That's too bad, because probably the Republican will win as a counter-negative rather than a positive, and will not have a real mandate for his policies. But at least it will indeed "spare us, O Lord" from the Clintons wielding national power again.

The Clinton thing is trivially explainable: Under Clinton, the government worked. As the major theory of the Republican party is that it doesn't work, they hate Clinton.

Or, at least, that explains the constant attacks. The hate is probably because those attacks failed.

There's actually no other explanation of it. The Clintons, both of them, are very 'centrist' DLC Republicans. They're fairly conservative except they're anti-outlawing-abortion, but all major Democrats are that, so that can't explain the irrationality towards them.

Same with health care...it could explain the hatred back in 1992, (Pretending it's rational to hate someone for a political position.) but it certainly can't explain anything now.

Oddly enough, the explanations about why Bill Clinton was evil used to include his jackbooted thugs shooting up Waco without due process, his ability to get wiretaps without a warrant, he'd invented some law that let him go, afterwards, to a secret court, and his unlawful attacks on other countries.

I don't seem to hear those explanations anymore.

One shcoking thing I still cannot get my brain around-Robert Rubin ran a more conservative economic policy than anything Bush's collection of goofballs ever has. And to his credit, Clinton recognized that a strong economy mattered more than anything else. Which is why a Clinton administration doesn't scare me half as much as Obama does.

Plus we'll have the comedy stylings of Roger Stone-

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/617oiaek.asp

Unsympathetic reader, do you recall the Cold War? It's over, but of course the Reagan administration had nothing to do with it. I grew up with the threat of global thermonuclear war, and that's not a concern of this younger generation.
It must have been Gorbachev's magic.

Did you all see the editorial at NYT about John McCain? It's by Kristol and called Thoroughly Unmodern McCain. There's something to that, McCain is old-fashioned. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

I am all but a registered Democrat, despite my strong beliefs in faith and family which according to some, should lead me to reject their platform. But a man like McCain, of demonstrated character and ethics, and a fellow war veteran (though his road was far harder than the one I'm walking!) just might get my vote over any Democrat. Certainly, if he ran against Hillary Clinton, because I think she would be a divider more than a uniter, though I could be wrong. I have been before. :)

"No matter which one wins the prize, a significant portion of the GOP base is going to decide to go fishing on election day. I can't see any of these men unifying a party as badly fractured as this one is this year."

I agree. My parents were in town over the weekend. As Catholics their political roots were in the Democratic party, but they've voted Republican since the Dems became the party of abortion on demand.

We talked politics for a bit, and their view of the candidates was pretty negative overall. They don't trust any of the three front-runners, Romney because he's as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry and is weak on abortion and the gay marriage issue (since he failed to show strong leadership in MA when gay marriage was first legalized under his watch), McCain because he's a firebrand, favors amnesty, and takes too many liberal positions in general, and Huckabee because he will raise taxes, increase the size of the government, and pander to the National Education Association. Their distrust of Huckabee was the strongest; I think it has to do with the fact that they are Catholic Yankee homeowners living in the South, and Huckabee reminds them strongly of the type of man with Christian symbols all over his shop and truck, who promises he can fix everything--and then charges you triple the going rate and never shows up to finish the job.

I can only see my parents being motivated to vote for any of these three men if they are voting against Hillary (though they find Obama pretty scary, too, partly for his extreme pro-abortion views and partly because he's so nebulous and unsubstantial, and yet has people swooning over his oratory without knowing or even caring what he's really all about). Whoever the Republican nominee is, the sad reality is that unless the party can be united solely around the notion of defeating the Democrat, there won't be any possible unifying factor for Republicans in this election.

Mitt, Weak on Gay marriage because he failed to show leadership in MA? Are you KIDDING??????

read this from people who WORKED with MITT to oppose gay marriage in MA:

An Open Letter Regarding Governor Mitt Romney

January 11, 2007

Dear conservative friends:

We hail from a broad spectrum of organizations dedicated to fighting for the pro-family agenda in Massachusetts. As you know, Mitt Romney became the governor of our state in 2003. Since that time, we have worked closely with him and his excellent staff on that agenda.

Some press accounts and bloggers have described Governor Romney in terms we neither have observed nor can we accept. To the contrary, we, who have been fighting here for the values you also hold, are indebted to him and his responsive staff in demonstrating solid social conservative credentials by undertaking the following actions here in Massachusetts:

• Staunchly defended traditional marriage. Governor Romney immediately and strongly condemned the 2003 court decision that legalized “same-sex marriage” in our state. More importantly, he followed up on that denunciation with action – action that saved our nation from a constitutional crisis over the definition of marriage. He and his staff identified and enforced a little-known 1913 law that allowed them to order local clerks not to issue marriage licenses to out-of-state couples. Absent this action, homosexual couples would surely have flooded into Massachusetts from other states to get “married” and then demanded that their home states recognize the “marriages,” putting the nation only one court decision away from nationalizing “same-sex marriage.”

• Worked hard to overturn “same-sex marriage” in the Commonwealth with considerable progress to date. In 2004 he lobbied hard, before a very hostile legislature, for a constitutional amendment protecting marriage – an amendment later changed by the legislature to include civil unions, which the Governor and many marriage amendment supporters opposed. Working with the Governor, we were successful in defeating this amendment.

• Provided active support for a successful citizen petition drive in 2005 to advance a clean constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

• Rallied thousands of citizens to focus public and media attention on the failure of legislators, through repeated delays, to perform their constitutional obligation and vote on the marriage amendment.

• Filed suit before the Supreme Judicial Court. The Governor’s suit asked the court to clarify the legislators’ duty to vote and failing that, to place the amendment on the 2008 ballot. That lawsuit, perhaps more than any other single action, was by all accounts instrumental in bringing pressure on the legislators to vote. The vote ultimately was taken on January 2, 2007 and won legislative support – clearing a major hurdle in the three year effort to restore traditional marriage in the Commonwealth.

• Fought for abstinence education. In 2006, under Governor Romney’s leadership, Massachusetts’ public schools began to offer a classroom program on abstinence from the faith-based Boston group Healthy Futures to middle school students. Promoting the program, Governor Romney stated, “I’ve never had anyone complain to me that their kids are not learning enough about sex in school. However, a number of people have asked me why it is that we do not speak more about abstinence as a safe and preventative health practice.”

• Affirmed the culture of life. Governor Romney has vetoed bills to provide access to the so called “morning-after pill,” which is an abortifacient, as well as a bill providing for expansive, embryo-destroying stem cell research. He vetoed the latter bill in 2005 because he could not “in good conscience allow this bill to become law.”

• Stood for religious freedom. Last year, Governor Romney was stalwart in defense of the right of Catholic Charities of Boston to refuse to allow homosexual couples to adopt children in its care. Catholic Charities was loudly accused of “discrimination,” but Governor Romney correctly pointed out that it is unjust to force a religious agency to violate the tenets of its faith in order to placate a special-interest group.

• Filed “An Act Protecting Religious Freedom” in the Massachusetts legislature to save Catholic Charities of Boston and other religious groups from being forced to violate their moral principles or stop doing important charitable work.

All of this may explain why John J. Miller, the national political reporter of National Review, has written that “a good case can be made that Romney has fought harder for social conservatives than any other governor in America, and it is difficult to imagine his doing so in a more daunting political environment.”

We are aware of the 1994 comments of Senate candidate Romney, which have been the subject of much recent discussion. While they are, taken by themselves, obviously worrisome to social conservatives including ourselves, they do not dovetail with the actions of Governor Romney from 2003 until now – and those actions have positively and demonstrably impacted the social climate of Massachusetts.

Since well before 2003, we have been laboring in the trenches of Massachusetts, fighting for the family values you and we share. It is difficult work indeed – not for the faint of heart. In this challenging environment, Governor Romney has proven that he shares our values, as well as our determination to protect them.

For four years, Governor Romney has been right there beside us, providing leadership on key issues – whether it was politically expedient to do so or not. He has stood on principle, and we have benefited greatly from having him with us.

It is clear that Governor Romney has learned much since 1994 – to the benefit of our movement and our Commonwealth. In fact, the entire nation has benefited from his socially conservative, pro-family actions in office. As we explained earlier, his leadership on the marriage issue helped prevent our nation from being plunged into even worse legal turmoil following the court decision that forced “gay marriage” upon our Commonwealth.

For that our country ought to be thankful. We certainly are.

Sincerely,

Rita Covelle
President, Morality in Media Massachusetts

Richard Guerriero
Immediate Past State Deputy, Massachusetts State Council, Knights of Columbus

Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Kristian Mineau
President, Massachusetts Family Institute

Dr. Roberto Miranda
President, COPAHNI Fellowship of Hispanic Pastors of New England

James Morgan
President, Institute for Family Development

Joseph Reilly
President, Massachusetts Citizens for Life

Thomas A. Shields
Chairman, Coalition for Family and Marriage

To contribute to Mitt’s campaign or to learn more

Romney weak on same sex marriage?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57786

Not according to these flyers. He apparently was quite strong for equal rights for all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/us/politics/09romney.html?fta=y

He presented his concerns to Log Cabin Republicans in a letter where he said that we needed to make GLBT civil rights a mainstream concern.

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/85505174.html

He came out supporting ENDA at the state level in an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

Sounds to me like he anything but weak, or at least he was. Must be convenience that made him change his mind.

Erin,
thanks for the link. The Boston Globe isn't exactly Romney Friendly! :-) Romney, has NEVER supported gay marriage. He does support gay rights (excluding gay marriage of course). Some conservatives might have a problem with that. I personally don't because I have always felt that you treat people like human beings. I don't, however, think that marriage is a "right" and I don't think that the definition needs to change.

Romney HAS changed his position on abortion and he's described in detail how that came about. He was initially pro-choice, in part because a close family member was killed during a botched illegal abortion when he was younger. After he became governor and had to make decisions which affected the life of the unborn, he realized he was on the wrong side of the issue and changed positions. Why on earth are we holding this against the man? EVERYONE who knows him says he's honest and decent, so why can't we take him for his word and move on? He kept every campaign promise he made when running for governor. He will do the same as president.

ps:
let's see if the stock market crashes today...

just another sign that The Economy is The Issue...

be real, you're assuming a lot of stuff about things.

First of all, I seriously doubt Bill Clinton ever lead Monica on...the idea a sitting president would divorce his wife and marry someone else is just flatly absurd, and Monica may have been somewhat naive but she wasn't stupid. I think Monica knew exactly what their relationship was.

And they didn't called Jones 'trailer trash', although I know why you think that, the newspapers continually asserted it. James Carville did, and he hadn't worked for the Clintons for almost six years at the time. James Carville is a entity unto himself, he's sorta non-evil Karl Rove.

And they didn't sell the Lincoln bedroom, either. That assertion is just, well, stupid. All presidents let random people sleep in that, for random reasons.

As for the Marc Rich pardon, Clinton had plenty of justification for that. It doesn't look entirely good, I admit, but Clinton had a point in that such prosecutions were normally settled civilly, not criminally, and there was good evidence that no crime had been committed at all.

Regardless it can't possibly explain the hatred towards Clinton while he was in office, considering, duh, it happened at the end.

The affair itself was sorta sleezy, but I think we can assume Hillary didn't have much of a part in that.